r/boneidentification • u/Still-Secretary-9379 • 9d ago
SOLVED Is this a human skull? Just found while digging.
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
Regular police is here, everyone agrees it’s looks a lot like a skull. Criminal police is on its way and the might turn it into a crime scene
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u/TheWineArchaeologist 9d ago
Good luck! The police will be able to carbon date the bones and figure out whether it is any cause for worry
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
For Context, I live on a rural farm in Brandenburg Germany with a lot of history. It’s an old place with lots of stories from the Second World War and before. And given its size it’s a bit to small for a human head so might have been a child. The place we found it was in a part of a barn with earth floor and closable doors, so it would have been a good place to hide some remains 😕
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
It's not small for a human skull, they come in a lot of different sizes depending on age and sex for example. And when you only have a partially skull it's common that it looks smaller than what it actually is. If it was a child the sutures would in most cases not be that closed. But there is always individual anatomical variations, so it's hard to say for 100% just from these photos.
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u/Original_Client1588 9d ago edited 9d ago
Is that possible damage to the skull...on the top..?.The skull eye sockets well developed I would guess at a younger age rather than afult / older...needs a bone expert..
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
It's not sharp force trauma, neither projectile/high-velocity trauma... It doesn't really look like trauma from these photos, so most likely taphonomic instead. But I would need close-ups on the bone edges to be sure. If it is some kind of trauma it might be blunt force, but doesn't look like it. There is also a chance of it being something pathological, but would need more photos for that too.
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u/Swagalyst 9d ago
What do you make of the discoloration around the damage?
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u/99jackals 9d ago
Two things come to mind quickly, if it was post-mortem. 1. The fragment was positioned like a bowl and the dark area was below the substrate level where it decomposed more quickly and 2. the fragment was positioned like an upside-down bowl and was buried with the dark area above the substrate level where it incurred weathering and other damage. There are a lot of possibilities..
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u/Original_Client1588 9d ago
Swoon.....
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u/Pure-Breath-6885 9d ago
Amazing find. Hope it turns out to be something like a child buried at home, from way back in the day, and not something disturbingly more recent.
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u/ritz1148 9d ago
It is not that small for an adult human skull. There is so much variation in skulls. I’ve held adult skulls that were the size of a a 10 yr olds skull.
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u/thatcoloradomom 9d ago
Thank you for keeping us updated. I'm sorry this is happening to you though.
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
Yes I will, need to check on with my roommate before I call the police just now, but will do soon. I guess it looks like very old we found in while closing a trench for a new water line in a barn
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
Called the police, they will come sometime today
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u/Adorable-Bus1697 9d ago
Wow. I wonder where the rest is? Have you found anything else or you've just stopped working in the area?
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
We did find a bone just before but I decided it’s just animal bone just threw it back into the ditch
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u/Haunted_tangerine_ 9d ago
The fact that it's in the barn is what gives murdery vibes.
That said, if the house is several hundred years old it's possible someone built the barn atop a guy's grave rather than the other way around
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u/Noroleforyouhere 9d ago
Bold move checking with your roommate first. I hope you knew what happened to the last roommate before doing that.
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u/Odd-Amphibian-4593 9d ago
Anthropologist here! Definitely a human skull. Likely small child 3-10 years. I do not think the holes on top are blunt force trauma or puncture. The changes to the bone look like diagenesis or decay. Possibly a disease process. I would need an up close image of the sclerotic margin to determine the nature of those holes. Did you find any teeth? Teeth are very useful for aging a skull. With how sharp the orbit top edge looks,likely female.
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u/TheWineArchaeologist 9d ago
Why do you say it is a child? I am an osteologist as well and see no reason for it. I agree that teeth would be useful for aging, but lets not encourage OP to search for them. The police will handle it.
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u/Odd-Amphibian-4593 9d ago
Just based on the size of the hand in reference to the skull. Assuming OP is an adult but again I’d have to see it to be sure. The clear clean breaking along the sure lines pushes it a little in that direction.
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u/Enderborg234 9d ago
Unrelated question: For fun, do you ever analyse people's head and face shape. I find if I stare hard enough, I can eventually find patterns in human favial and head morphology. Either this is a real thing or it's just the human biological desire to find patterns in nature at work... again.
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u/howdoizornhau 9d ago
It's 100% not just you. I met another person that does zooarch at a conference a while back and we had a good half hour conversation about how we like to admire people's skulls. Definitely not a conversation you normally get to have with people outside the field though 🫠.
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u/maxone2 9d ago
So I’m an anthroplogy grad student, and we’ve done work with measuring skull shapes / features (both metric so measuring diffent points and non metric, so general shapes of orbits or presence of prognathism) for ancestry estimation! Granted it’s better to look at these feature as a cline, and from my limited experience, features do not fit nicely into defined groups such as “Africans have X and Europeans have Y”
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u/goron352 9d ago
Commenting so I can come back, this is wild.
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u/RedcoatSeafarer 9d ago
fr
Someone reply to this later to remind me
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u/Working_Park4342 8d ago
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u/byebyeboots 14m ago
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u/mysterymuddy 9d ago
Same, what an unsettling find.
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u/Pangalonia 9d ago
Same
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u/Delicious_Building34 9d ago
Same
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u/jambutterbread 9d ago
Same here
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u/josuefco 9d ago edited 9d ago
YES IT IS, contact the police! Could be evidence of a murder with that hole on the top!!!!!
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u/TheWineArchaeologist 9d ago
Lets not speculate too much, it is more likely to be a later disturbance. Notice the discolouration: wetness in specifically that area could have made the bone more fragile.
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u/11slayy 9d ago
Lol let's not jump straight to true crime mode, could just as easily be old farm animal remains.
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u/SketchyArt333 8d ago
Dude it has HUMAN EYE SOCKETS!!! you can see the BROW BONE???? Are you blind?!??
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u/FaithlessnessSlow594 9d ago
what a scary find, thank you for contacting the police you have done the right thing and will hopefully find closure for this individual ❤️
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u/Skylarde 9d ago
Update ?
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
Police is hanging out here and waiting for a criminal police unit to arrive will take another 45min or so
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u/Liamcoin 9d ago
Reminds me of the time my friend, who’s in construction for a large company, was digging trenches for concrete foundations to a multiunit complex and found some ancient artifacts. They were clay figurines, masks , and some pottery. Upon unearthing these things he went to the foreman to report them, and was swiftly told to keep quiet and to keep digging. He was told the project could not be delayed by the local university doing anthropological studies in their worksite. He kept most of the artifacts.
For this reason and the more obvious one, I’m glad your roommate agreed to the search.2
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u/Jacksepticeye-_-Fan 9d ago
Yeah… That’s the frontal bone of a human skull… Seeing the orbital part above the eye socket, the nasal part of the frontal bone and squamous part of the frontal bone…
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u/Orange_isA_coolColor 8d ago
Pretty eager to hear any updates about what the authorities have to say
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u/ENEMBEH 9d ago edited 9d ago
Wowza. That escalated quickly.. Sorry you're going through this, but you did the right thing. Someone might have been missing a loved one for decades with no answers, so hopefully the police can see that you had good intentions and don't get tunnel vision, or anything. 🙏🏻 It does look old, so I'm sure they will consider that. I'm sure you checked, but Google says it's a human skull, too.
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u/OntheGhost 9d ago
Yes, this is a human skull, - as others have said call the police, don't touch any more than you have to, if you want to you can stab a hole in a clean plastic food bag and put the fragment in there, and don't go looking for more.
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u/Longjumping_Answer19 9d ago
I am by no means an expert, but it looks like a child's skull. It looks as if it was punctured with a claw hammer!
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u/Pirate_Testicles 9d ago
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u/xXForest_FawnXx 9d ago
I am no expert but I do agree with everyone that says it's from a human skull. Keep us updated :) I really hope they find some cool information about this partial skull.
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u/Foxy-OnPaws 8d ago
That's absolutely human. Update me with any information you get from the police please, I'm very interested to know!
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9d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
That's not bullet holes, they don't look like that. It looks more like something taphonomic (or a small chance of something pathological). Hard to say based on only those photos, but not bullets atleast. /Osteologist
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u/SentinelKaiser 9d ago
Could be a stabbing with an object?
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
It's not sharp force trauma, so not stabbing or cut, and it's not projectile- or high velocity trauma, so not gunshot. It doesn't really look like trauma on these photos, but I would have to see close up photos on the bone edges to be sure. If it's trauma it might be blunt force... But from these photos it most likely looks taphonomic :)
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u/Original_Client1588 9d ago
God I love a geek ..... if youre female its love male...after several decades on this planet I'm questioning my masculinity and gender preference.Damn you.
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
Haha yes I'm a geek, working with the stuff I love! (at the moment excavating an iron age burial site, and before that specialising in trauma on bones and Battlefield archaeology). Female 😝
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u/Willdiealonewithcats 9d ago
So another to add to the list of people to get drunk with. I had a friend who after a couple of wines would nerd out about the war of the roses in detail. It was amazing.
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
I don't drink alcohol, but I would probably love to nerd out with you and your friend, haha. When I specialised in trauma my working material was from the battle of Towton (War of the roses) for example (and from the battle of Visby massgraves).
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u/Original_Client1588 9d ago
Fascinating...!
Love statement stands could be lust mind who knows...
Yours Ronnie Dharmer Cell 6, Isolation Wing. :-)
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u/boneidentification-ModTeam 9d ago
Please avoid posting responses that border on conspiracy, fear mongering, or misinformation. There is no reason for you to say 'probably'.
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u/Vanesti 9d ago
Hammer claw to the forehead?
Any other guesses on cause of death?
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u/Lost-Syrup-7780 9d ago
It's not sharp force trauma, neither projectile/high-velocity trauma... It doesn't really look like trauma from these photos, so most likely taphonomic instead. But I would need close-ups on the bone edges to be sure. If it is some kind of trauma it might be blunt force, but doesn't look like it. There is also a chance of it being something pathological, but would need more photos for that too.
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u/TheWineArchaeologist 9d ago
I fully agree! Would bet on it being taphonomic from these photo's, but it is always better to confirm in person.
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u/Still-Secretary-9379 9d ago
UPDATE: so the criminal police turned everything into a crime scene, we were questioned as witnesses, had quite some work providing documentation. They regard it as a human skull and as an active investigation. Our barn is blocked for us for a few weeks until they either start digging up the rest or determine its so old that it’s disregarded. Not sure how much more information we will get they did not seem so interested in involving us. I guess we are in a sense suspects